Blood Elves would never have gone alliance. Blizzard wouldn't want to deal with the backlash of horde loving blood elves complaining about being switched over to alliance.

Its sad because it would be awesome to have the blood elves back as alliance.

Vol'jin became the next warchief because hes one of the few horde leaders who truly believe in the horde and could step in to take control since thrall went jesus. Lor'Themar only cares about his people. Sylvanas is litchking number two and only cares about her people. Goblins only care about money. Tauren can't even take care of themselves.

Exactly. The only actual Warchief material would be Vol'jin or Saurfang. Saury's too old for the job.

Another issue though, and maybe this one you'll agree with more, none of them (At least the eligible ones) wanted the position. Wasn't Lor'themar hesitant to even take the position he has now? Thrall has made it clear he doesn't want it back either, unsure of Baine, but I believe Baine last I heard was even doubting his own ability to lead the Tauren.

He's one of Thrall's advisors, sure; however, in The Shattering Thrall mentions Eitrigg and Cairne specifically to Garrosh, he makes no mention of Vol'jin.

Wasn't there bad blood between Garrosh and Vol'jin at the time already? Wouldn't of been a smart move to try to force them together possibly?

Here's a few problems I find with the "HE LED THE REBELLION" argument:

Overall Vol'jin didn't convince anyone to rebel against Garrosh, they were well on their way to doing that, as is most prominently featured with Lor'themar's intentions on the Isle of Thunder, and Gallywix's intentions in Pandaria.

Instead he was a figurehead for the other Horde races to unite under, he was the first to openly rebel, have you ever considered why that might be? What are the consequences for committing treason? Usually death. Vol'jin had already been given a death sentence, as such he faced no increase in risk for openly rebelling against Garrosh.

No, I know he only rebelled because he was already a target and trolls were being murdered, they made it clear in Tides of War that he did nothing against Garrosh because he was afraid for his race, and he advised Baine to do the same, stay out of Garrosh's path otherwise his race will find it hard to stay in the Horde and what not. And I didn't mean he turned the Horde magically against Garrosh, what I meant was he was the first to rebel, and what Blizzard should of done with that was actually spend 5.3 making Vol'jin as useful as he should be, like they did with Lor'themar on the Isle of Thunder, in fact, remember before MoP, most players were like "Lor'thewho?". They took someone a majority didn't know about, and made him suddenly one of the most popular horde leaders, they could of done so much more with Vol'jin, yet they dropped the ball with 5.3.

"Above all, video games are meant to be just one thing: Fun. Fun for everyone"- Satoru Iwata

Exactly. The only actual Warchief material would be Vol'jin or Saurfang. Saury's too old for the job.

saurfang in my opinion would be better fit as a general then a warchief.
though i am interested to see how he would do as the orcs racial leader. hopefully he will be in the same room and Vol'jin. so you know he can cleave the alliance. lol

I can see why Vol'Jin got the role to rule the Horde in lore, extended lore books and comparing to the rest of the Horde leaders but he didn't get or hasn't gotten any good reasons why he should lead the Horde in the gameplay. If it was shown that he took a more active role maybe even replacing Thralls scenes in the siege it probably make it appealing.

Besides Blizzard haven't treated many of the other Horde leaders with many moments via gameplay in WoW.

Gallywix: Starting zone and some of shot scenes.
Caine/Baine: Cant remember any good ones.
Lor'themar: haven't played MoP but I heard he got some good scenes but that quite late.
Vol'jin: besides MoP, most of the scenes where about unfriendly Trolls and the quests regarding the Darkspear has also been small.

Then you have Thrall that has been part of many mayor quest events and got more after he left his post.
Sylvanas: has had many scenes throughout the game more in WotLK and Cata.
Gorrash: Has had a good build up towards Cata where he took control but I have always felt that he would do something that would screw him over and turn everyone against him when he became Warchief.

The could have made a Counsile instead but it would only make the Horde look weak IMO.

TLDR: I don't Blame Vol'jin for looking like a poor Warchief and blame Blizzard for not making reasons via gameplay why he should be a the one leading The Horde now.
PS: didn't play MoP, mostly watched some lore videos about it.

Last edited by Lunkwow; 2014-04-16 at 09:46 PM.
Reason: failed at typing.

At what point does age disqualify someone for the job of Warchief? What about being Warchief is inherently linked with age? Cairne would have been Warchief, despite being very old by Tauren standards, if he had beat Garrosh in a Mak'gora. To discount Saurfang based solely off from age and ignore his other qualifications is ridiculously stupid.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Jester Joe

Another issue though, and maybe this one you'll agree with more, none of them (At least the eligible ones) wanted the position. Wasn't Lor'themar hesitant to even take the position he has now? Thrall has made it clear he doesn't want it back either, unsure of Baine, but I believe Baine last I heard was even doubting his own ability to lead the Tauren.

Lor'themar didn't want the position, sure. He has made comments about his distaste for politics and the only reason he's serving as Regent Lord for his people is because he assumed that the position would be temporary, following the revelation that it wasn't, Lor'themar saw that his people needed him badly. One could make the case that Lor'themar might rise to the occasion and take up the mantle of Warchief; however, it's not a completely solid case.

Thrall didn't necessarily want it back because he largely blames himself for Garrosh. We saw Thrall make a concession in Tides of War, admitting that he could barely keep the Horde together and hoped that Garrosh's leadership, and policy direction might help.

I'm not discounting the possibility of Baine feeling doubts about his recent leadership of the Tauren, but I do have to ask for a source. Granted, I could just be forgetting, but off from the top of my head, I can't really place that feeling on any particular book or text, so I wouldn't know where to begin looking for it.

That being said, we haven't seen whether or not Saurfang or Eitrigg would have been willing to take up the mantle.

Saurfang did serve as Doomhammer's second-in-command, during the Second War and is highly decorated, plus he has some ties with the most politically influential and powerful nation within the Alliance (Not necessarily "ties" in the actual sense, but he is on good standing with Wrynn), in addition to this he has led multi racial organizations in the past, and really serves as a medium between Thrall and Garrosh (And we've seen that neither really had the "right" approach.)

Eitrigg would also be a decent candidate, he's not as decorated as Saurfang militarily (Neither is Lol'jin), however he would be a great for the Horde's relations with the rest of the world. We have no reason to assume that the Argent Crusade has lost any of its political clout, and Eitrigg is practically best friends with the guy. Due to his friendship with an influential neutral figure, and decent standing among both the Horde and Alliance, Eitrigg could really work to build some bridges between the Horde and other organizations while it's in a weakened state.

Wasn't there bad blood between Garrosh and Vol'jin at the time already? Wouldn't of been a smart move to try to force them together possibly?

No, that conversation took place before Garrosh's actual promotion, which was where hostilities broke out between him and Vol'jin. Garrosh wasn't a big Vol'jin fan even before that, but he had kept that opinion to himself. He wasn't to the point of segregating them yet, but he did feel like they weren't pulling their weight. (In Heart of War, he mentions his frustration regarding the Alliance encroachment into Horde territories and violations of peace such as attacks on Horde outposts and the stealing of supplies. He goes on to blame groups like the Darkspear for not contributing to the Horde, and forcing the Horde itself to stretch its resources thin, resources which could otherwise be used to defend from attacks and theft.)

And I didn't mean he turned the Horde magically against Garrosh, what I meant was he was the first to rebel, and what Blizzard should of done with that was actually spend 5.3 making Vol'jin as useful as he should be, like they did with Lor'themar on the Isle of Thunder, in fact, remember before MoP, most players were like "Lor'thewho?". They took someone a majority didn't know about, and made him suddenly one of the most popular horde leaders, they could of done so much more with Vol'jin, yet they dropped the ball with 5.3.

Here's the key difference between Vol'jin and Lor'themar.

Lor'themar didn't have a ton of established lore before MoP, and they've done a great job bringing out the best of his character. That's just it actually, they're working off from previously established traits and shining some spotlight on them. We see Lor'themar being a great military commander, we see his distaste for politics, we see his concern for his people, etc. Nothing about that changed Lor'themar's character one bit, it just expanded his previously established character.

Vol'jin on the other hand, from WCIII to MoP hasn't done a whole lot, on that he's similar to Lor'themar. However, from Cata onward, instead of highlighting his good qualities (Which he has very few of), they made his single claim to fame be the fact that "He opposed Garrosh," which is hard to be impressed by considering that he was neither the first to do so, nor a minority in that regard.

That's his single claim to fame, everything else just appeared in 5.4. There's a lot of talk about Vol'jin founding the Horde and being committed to its ideals. That's bullshit. First of all, Doomhammer can technically be considered the "first" Warchief of the New Horde, and while Thrall was instrumental, he wasn't the original leader. Even assuming that the new Horde started with Warchief Thrall, the Horde and the ideals to which it was committed under Thrall, was established following the death of Doomhammer.

During the Third war and shortly after, it was largely Thrall and Cairne that did the work. Cairne fully committed the Tauren to the Battle of Mt. Hyjal, and was there himself, Vol'jin was still on the Darkspear Isles (Not the Echo Isles). In fact, speaking of Vol'jin, he didn't even strike up the alliance between the Darkspear and the Horde, that was his father Sen'jin, Vol'jin just continued it. Vol'jin was far from instrumental in founding the Horde, he had almost nothing to do with it's establishing its ideals, and his contributions were outmached by those such as: Thrall, Cairne, Rexxar, Rokhan, Orgrim Doomhammer, and Drek'thar.

So that whole "Da Horde be a family mon'" ideology that he just started spouting, despite considering leaving the Horde twice, doesn't sit well with me and really doesn't agree with his past characterization at all.

I'm not discounting the possibility of Baine feeling doubts about his recent leadership of the Tauren, but I do have to ask for a source. Granted, I could just be forgetting, but off from the top of my head, I can't really place that feeling on any particular book or text, so I wouldn't know where to begin looking for it.

A bit late to this, but I'm not 100% honestly, it might of been in Tides of War, and even then I believe it was more of a he doubted he could be as good as his father, or something about his father would be a better leader than him. Most likely just doubted himself compared to his father though I think.

"Above all, video games are meant to be just one thing: Fun. Fun for everyone"- Satoru Iwata